


Genki

by DaughterOfTheWest



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bittersweet moments, Drabbles, Fun fact: largest Japanese population outside of Japan is in Brazil, Genji is delightful, Genji will fight anyone who doesn't think so, I love these green dorks ok, Lucio is the best, M/M, multiple short scenes, musical genius and tech genius and all around genius Lucio, tooth-rotting cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 09:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9715748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfTheWest/pseuds/DaughterOfTheWest
Summary: It begins in Nepal, when Lucio finds himself alone in Genji’s old room.There’s photos tucked away in the corner, sitting in a pile atop a modest cabinet. All of them are worn and some are falling apart at folded seams.[My entry for the Overwatch Valentine's Day Exchange! Prompt: Genji/Lucio, "Genki green gays."]





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse the rough edges and general lack of beta-reading-- I ended up writing this in the middle of a con crunch. 
> 
> Translations for all Japanese dialogue will be in the end notes :) My Japanese is pretty rusty, but I think I generally got it close enough? If there's anything seriously mistranslated/incorrect Kanji you can let me know in the comments. 
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day!

It begins in Nepal, when Lucio finds himself alone in Genji’s old room.

 

There’s photos tucked away in the corner, sitting in a pile atop a modest cabinet. All of them are worn and some are falling apart at folded seams. 

 

One: Genji and Hanzo, arms around each other, smiling at the camera. Genji’s grinning, Hanzo glancing over to his brother’s laughter. They are both dressed like honest-to-god ninjas standing side-by-side in gi and with swords tucked into their belts. Genji looks so happy here.

 

Two: Genji wearing a hotel yukata and making a peace sign at the camera, standing on a balcony with beautiful mountains unspooling into the distance behind him. His hair is still green but flops down, headband foregone. He looks a little older than in the first picture, dark circles visible like half-moons shining through the smile in his eyes.

 

Three: he’s younger again-- dressed to kill (heh, “kill”) in a button down and slacks, artfully tousled, smirking over one shoulder to someone off-camera. There’s a swanky-looking nightclub raging in the background. Someone definitely took this with a cell phone camera: the harsh flash that would make anyone else look awkward glances off his effortless charm, the lopsided smile, the handsome lines of his face. This playboy in the photo has the same easy confidence as the Genji that Lucio knows, but here there is a kind of lighthearted swagger that only exists in small echoes beneath the weight of Genji’s new, mechanical life.

 

Lucio asks Genji about the photos that night while they’re sprawled out on the couch, and even through the inscrutable metal mask Lucio knows the sheepish lilt to Genji's voice. “I was… very young. Younger than I was old.”

 

He doesn’t press further, but pulls Genji close that night under the covers in lieu of more words.

  
  
  
  


Genji’s read Lucio’s file. To be fair, he’s read every file on the OW database-- the public parts, at least, because contrary to popular belief ending up in a cyborg body doesn’t give you magical hacker powers-- but it was Lucio’s that he found himself going back to.

 

When Winston announced that Lucio and Hana were joining the new Overwatch, Genji did his due diligence. Hana’s experience in the South Korean omnic wars are well-documented, mostly by the girl herself. Livestreaming military operations would do that.

 

Lucio, on the other hand--

 

There are many official reports of the Rio uprising, and all of them are different. One mentions the peaceful protests that began the galvanizing of the Rio favelas, while smoothing over Vishkar’s violent response. Another paints the rebels as violent thugs looking to protect their turf, but contains a detailed description of the legal actions on behalf of the government where they are threaded through the uprising. Every story has flaws. Every story has truth.

 

First-hand accounts are better: Genji has memorized the details from any he can find, lined up the series of events with his own knowledge and the scars he’s seen on Lucio’s body: one on Lucio's ribs, from shrapnel off an IED during the first wave of Vishkar crackdowns; a small one on his hand, where he cut himself on some broken glass while climbing through a window during the third raid into Viskhar’s Labs; the ones that are knotted and the ones that are smooth, and ones that healed wrong because Lucio hadn’t perfected his auditory medicine yet.

 

And yet, even with all his research, it is still hard for Genji to line up the Lucio he knows (cheerful, effervescent, unswervingly kind) with every account of his past experiences, each one more harrowing than the last. It’s a puzzle, somehow. Maybe that’s why Genji can’t seem to stay away, drawn into his warmth like a moth to a flame.

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

Genji once mentioned in passing that his auditory processing is different than a regular human's; which, in retrospect, might have been a mistake. Or a blessing? It’s hard to tell with the way Lucio has locked himself in his room and become hyper-fixated on a new project--that’s just something he does, Genji assures himself, it’s not unusual for Lucio to temporarily become a recluse if he’s inspired. Still, that doesn’t stop Genji from wrapping up a second helping of dinner just in case Lucio forgot to eat again.

 

He balances the plates on one arm and is about to knock when he notices that the door to Lucio’s room is open. On the far side of the room is the DJ himself, leaning over his menagerie of music equipment in his pajamas, dreads hanging down and headphones pulled over his ears. He looks so at home here. Dynamic yet relaxed. Genji hates the way that his first instinct is to calculate how many different ways he could kill a target like this, and waves the thoughts away as soon as they appear unbidden in his mind.

 

“You are hard at work,” he says instead, letting a smile creep into his voice at the way Lucio jumps suddenly, hand splayed over his heart as he turns around and peers wide-eyed up at his outstretched offering of food.

 

“You scared the shit outta me--”

 

“I apologize,” he chuckles, “Moving quietly is a hard habit to break.”

 

Lucio’s smiles are always blinding, but this one is warm, softer.

 

“Well this works out, you’re just the dude I wanted to see. I got something,” a vague gesture instructs Genji to sit, which he does, “You have an audio jack in all that hardware, or just listen with speakers?”

 

“My audio connectors are internally wired.”

 

Lucio nods and grabs a second pair of headphones, hooking them up to his computer and handing them over, “No worries, put these on.”

 

Genji can only catch a blurred scroll of audio waves across the screen as Lucio flicks through the layers of his song back to the beginning, precise and practiced. He has skilled hands. It’s strange, how that thought can still give him childlike butterflies. Even in this body.

 

“Alright, give this a listen. I tried to make something that works with the design your aural processors--” Lucio stops himself, feeling his sound-tech geekspeak take over in the excited rush of his words, “Just tell me what you think-- or wait-- no, even better. Tell me how it _feels_.”

 

He sets the headphones over Genji’s ears.

 

The first brush of the treble shivers along his nerves, and he isn’t ready for it. Lucio’s brows tighten at the way Genji flinches, but as Lucio goes to pause the music a cool metal hand on his arm stops him.

 

“Please, don’t,” Genji grins beneath the mask, melody springing up and singing over the tactile thump of the bass, “I was just surprised, this is--”

 

The sentence dies on his tongue as the music swells. Beats pulse through him-- like a heartbeat, like _his_ heartbeat, back before he became a cyborg-- and he feels it. Viscerally. Melody plucks up in spiraling patterns and encircles the bassline, the song shines bright, glows from within. It twists around and makes his face ache from how hard he’s smiling. And the best part? The whole symphony vibrates through his senses, resonating with every wire and chip in his body. He doesn’t hear it so much as lets it crash through him.

 

Genji spent years of his young life in the club scene, fancied himself an expert on EDM, Synthpop, waves of music he threw himself into for the sake of drowning out the background noise of his “real” life. Once upon a time, he thought he’d heard everything.

 

But what words could capture _this_?

 

The expectant, fragile hope of an artist awaiting feedback from their audience blooms in the way Lucio watches him, like if he looks hard enough he can see Genji’s face beneath the plating. His eyes stay trained on him through the whole song, even as Lucio lets slip little anxious tells with each new movement of the music. It’s cute. Suddenly, Genji is thankful that there is something between his blushing cheeks and Lucio’s intense gaze.

 

As soon as the track ends, Genji gingerly removes the headphones and presses the release catch on the back of his faceplate, exposing the marred flesh of his bare face. Heart thumping in his chest, he leans in to press a kiss to the lips Lucio has left ajar.

 

“I’ve never heard anything like it.”

 

God, he could watch that grin rise on Lucio’s face forever and never need to see anything else.

 

“You mean it?” Lucio breathes into the space between them. Genji rests their foreheads together and laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners as he lets the joy infect him.

 

“Do I ever say anything I don’t mean?”

 

“Like that time you told Hanzo that a furry just means ‘a hairy person’?”

 

“Alright maybe not _everything_ \--”

 

“Or that time--”

 

Genji shuts him up with another kiss, still shivering with delight in the afterglow of a musical masterpiece this genius musician wrote, just for him.

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

Lucio dozes comfortably until he feels Genji shift beneath his cheek.  He doesn’t open his eyes, but the approaching sound of footsteps (nearly silent, toeing the ground with trained precision) lets him know exactly who walks through the door without needing to look.

 

「よ、兄者。」　

 

「源氏。」

 

There’s quiet between them as the footsteps circle the couch and stop in front of the nearby chair. He can practically feel Hanzo fix Genji with a piercing gaze. Even so, Genji remains coolly impassive. Hanzo is waiting to say something, and some unspoken brother-language exchange happens in the silence before he continues.

 

「あのブラジル人 。」

 

Usually Lucio doesn’t mind when Hanzo and Genji speak Japanese to each other in front of him. Hell, he usually loves listening to them talk--

 

But when they’re talking about Lucio (quite literally) over his head? He minds.

 

「うん？ 」

 

An uncomfortable hum of thoughtfulness sounds from Hanzo’s position on the chair.

 

「恋人でしょう？」

 

Lucio watches Genji’s carefully-schooled deadpan tighten into something challenging.

 

「そうかなぁ〜」his lilt sounds teasing, maybe a little bit spiteful.

 

「答えろう。」

 

「ルシオくんは恋人か、恋人じゃないか、どうする？」 Genji smirks.「どうして知りたいぜ？困っているぞ？」

 

Based on the grunt, it seems that Hanzo has bristled.

 

「それじゃないー」

 

「問題ある？オーバヲッチではデーチングしないルールがないんだ。あのところで、兄者とマクリーさんの事。。。」

 

Hanzo turns redder than McCree’s serape and sputters,「そうじゃないんだ、源氏。問題ないんだがー」

 

「僕たちは恋人です。」

 

That makes both Genji and Hanzo stop.

 

Lucio sits up and yawns, looking between the brothers’ stunned faces with a cocky half-smile.

 

“Lucio--” Genji’s surprise shifts into pride, which in turn falls to sheepishness as he realizes that Lucio has understood their entire conversation, “I didn’t realize--”

 

「大丈夫。」he pats Genji’s arm and faces down the elder Shimada, who still seems confused.

 

“Dude, Hanzo-- you know that there are tons of Japanese people in Brazil, right?”

 

If Hanzo got much redder he’d probably explode.

 

“My next-door neighbors back in Rio were the Takedas. I spent, like, every weekend over there. Not a native speaker or anything, but I know enough to know when you’re talking about me and I’m right here.”

 

Genji bursts out into laughter, and Lucio high fives him through their giggles as Hanzo stalks out of the room.

  
  
  


 

 

 

 

The hardest part about dating your coworker while working for Overwatch is definitely knowing that on any given mission, your partner is most definitely going to be thrown into death-defying danger, and you can do nothing about it. Take, for instance, the heart attack Lucio has when he sees Genji come back from a stealth op on a stretcher.

 

He flies into the Medbay and slams the door open so hard that Angela jumps where she’s standing, leaning over Genji’s still form.

 

“Tell me he’s ok--” He pleads, fingers already curling around one cold metal palm. That doesn’t mean anything, he reminds himself, Genji’s coolant systems are efficient, it doesn’t mean he’s gone--

 

“Lucio--”

 

“Please doc, just--”

 

A groan cuts him off, and when Lucio looks over Genji is picking up his head. His mask is set aside, and he blinks sleep from his eyes and mutters something in Japanese.

 

“Genji!”

 

“Lucio...?”

 

All the breath rushes out of him at once, and he can hardly hold himself back from smothering his boyfriend with kisses as he presses their foreheads together. Genji is alive, he’s okay, he’s not gone--

 

「大丈夫？元気？」

 

Genji huffs out a chuckle and nods, 「元気。」

 

Just seeing him laugh makes the fear ebb away, leaving nothing but relief in its wake, “Holy shit you scared me. Never do that again okay?”

 

“I apologize,” Genji manages a cheeky smirk, “I will do my best not to ever get hurt ever again.”

  
Lucio smiles back, “You better.”

**Author's Note:**

> Japanese Translations
> 
> Scene 4--
> 
> Genji: "Yo, Anija (how Genji addresses Hanzo, casual + vaguely Yakuza-ey word for Older Brother)"  
> Hanzo: "Genji."  
> Hanzo: "That Brazilian..."  
> Genji: "Yeah?"  
> Hanzo: "Is he your lover/boyfriend?"  
> Genji: "Hmm, well... (hard to translate, it's an intentionally general/noncomittal turn of phrase)"  
> Hanzo: "Answer."  
> Genji: "If Lucio is my lover, or isn't my lover, what are you going to do? Why do you want to know? Does it trouble you?"  
> Hanzo: "It's not that--"  
> Genji: "Is it a problem? Overwatch doesn't have rules against dating. On that point, you and McCree..."  
> Hanzo: "It's not like that, Genji. I don't have a problem with it but--"  
> Lucio: "We're lovers."  
> Lucio: "It's alright."
> 
>  
> 
> Scene 5--  
> Lucio: "Are you okay? Are you well?" (Specifically, he uses the word "genki", which despite the fandom/more general sense of Genki-ness as referring to "energetic-ness" or "liveliness", colloquially just means "well/healthy".)  
> Genji: "I'm well." (again, "genki").


End file.
